by Slate Electric Pickup: From $25,000 to $46,000 in a Few Clicks
Slate built its concept on simplicity, affordability, and endless customization. These goals sound great together, but spending just a few minutes in the online configurator reveals they can contradict each other.
It’s already easy to question the value of this pickup compared to the Ford Maverick, but if you start adding options unrestrainedly, the budget EV suddenly stops looking like a good deal.
Read more: Carvana May Have a Stake in Bezos’s Slate Auto
Base Price and Body Style Options
The starting price of the startup’s electric pickup is $24,950 excluding delivery, but that’s just the beginning. Buyers who want something more practical than a standard pickup can choose the Squareback SUV conversion for $29,950 or the Fastback SUV for $31,950. Both options add a bed cover and rear seats. From this point, the price tag can be increased extremely easily.
Bottomless Pit of Accessories
Slate’s business model revolves around personalization, and the accessory catalog is vast. Just exterior wraps can add $1,599.99, with decorative decals, additional lighting, roof racks, fender flares, alternative grilles, spare tire mounts, and upgraded 20-inch wheels all increasing the total. The configurator even allows buyers to choose whimsical graphic elements, including fake business branding, alongside traditional racing stripes.
The interior follows the same philosophy. Buyers can add a center console, upgraded armrests, storage accessories, floor mats, and additional speakers, as the pickup does not come with a standard audio system. A front center speaker costs $249.99, and extra dashboard speakers add another $149.99. Even the dashboard tablet, which serves as the infotainment interface — a feature that will undoubtedly be popular — still doesn’t have a published price.
Also: New $30,000 Ford Electric Pickup Barely Reaches Expedition’s Shoulder
As Car and Driver journalists discovered, and we confirmed ourselves, if you pile on enough accessories, the math changes dramatically. A fully loaded Fastback SUV exceeded $46,000. Our build reached $46,607.49, to be exact, and you would still be manually cranking your windows, at least until the power window kit hinted at by Slate arrives. It’s worth noting that there are some more exotic options, such as a lift kit, off-road tires, etc., which don’t have prices yet or are unavailable, so the total will rise. Importantly, this is not a criticism of the strategy.
The Flip Side of Customization
Almost every traditional brand boasts about the customization buyers can do, but none come close to this level. Slate allows customers to choose exactly where to spend their money, without hiding unique features behind a big trim package upgrade. Someone who just needs a basic electric pickup can still buy it for the advertised starting price, while enthusiasts can create something much more distinctive.
All of this is an important reminder that while the $24,950 pickup makes headlines, the final price can be significantly higher.
Photos: Slate Auto
This approach by Slate is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, it offers genuine freedom of choice, which is rare in the modern auto industry where buyers are often forced to overpay for unnecessary option packages. On the other hand, the lack of clear boundaries in the configurator could lead an inexperienced buyer, carried away by visual enhancements, to end up with a vehicle costing almost twice the initial price. This creates an interesting precedent: Slate positions itself as a budget brand, but its business model actually encourages spending significantly more, turning an affordable EV into a niche product for enthusiasts willing to pay for uniqueness.
